I wonder if young Mr Sussman, the boyish charmer who’s the star prosecutor on the government side, is going to make this a regular feature. Last week, reading out one of Conrad Black’s rococo emails to the court, he stumbled over the word “calumnies”. The email was blown up and splashed across a huge screen in the room – “published”, as the lawyers say – so we could all see what was causing Mr Sussman his pronunciation difficulties. “coll...” he began “cal-UMM”, as if it were the same as “alumni”. He tried again, and then gave up. “I dunno,” he said. “What is that?” He turned helplessly to the defence team, and eventually Edward Genson said, “Conrad?” It was left to the defendant to supply the correct pronunciation of the word.

Now this was great theatre. But it seems to me unlikely, even given the debased state of the public education system, that a man who has been to law school, as Mr Sussman presumably has, would be unfamiliar with this word, which at one time was not uncommon in matters of legal dispute. So, unless he’s planning on being the first illiterate to make it to the Supreme Court, he’s playing a game here. The object is to position the defendant as a man whose very language reeks of snobbery and elitism. The government has apparently figured that this is a jury from a one syllable neighbourhood, and won’t take kindly to toffee-nosed foreigners flaunting exotic polysyllables at them. In the days ahead, we’ll find out whether Mr Sussman plans to make this a running joke.